If ex-players would stop expecting the NFL to take care of them years after they retire, this wouldn't be an issue. Fans want brutal hits, but want their own players kept safe. The NFL wants ratings and money, not law suits. Ex-players want their health covered. It's just a messy situation every which way you look at it. I mean, just this past month Vick, Cutler, Alex Smith were all concussed. Those are major players for their teams. If an opposing player went high, as a fan are you supposed to not call him dirty? Or just say, that's the game. It's like an ugly catch-22.

The game of football from all aspects will be doomed eventually. Fans don't generally care what happens to the players and neither does the league itself except when posturing to look good in the public eye. The lawsuits will only increase over time and just imagine how the next CBA will go if you thought the one last year was tough.

Football players are overpaid pussies. Fans are going to get tired of Gooddell changing the rules every year. The players get paid millions each year. They know the risks and so on. Deal with it. Players back in the day wasn't complainning. But yet these over price losers want the game want to become less contact every year. OMG!! I just broke my nail. Less sue the NFL over my nail breaking. LOL Injuries are a part of the game. Deal with it and be a man. You get paid a ton of money to play. I really think the more rules they make and the less hitting that happens. The less money the football players should get paid. Simple as that.

You dumbasses talking about the pussification of the league forget that the average player is both bigger and faster than ever and running on shitty artificial fields instead of grass. The human body has physical limits that they test on every single play. Making it where players have to actually block a guy instead of taking out his knees is actually a step up from the current way RBs wuss out on their blocking assignments.

On a serious note, I think having players go back to knee pads, thigh pads, etc is a good thing. But the NFL with its rule changes some years back is all about scoring and "exciting" the fans. They want QB's to pass for 3-400 yds a game, etc.

So, putting these protective "inhibitors to speed" back on the players might not get them the high scoring outputs they yearn for. Who knows if they will go back there.

I think a helmet that is about 1" increase in diameter would also help. Increased padding in the inside, similar to the walls Nascar adopted to soften the turns. Also, to put a "leather like" cover on the outside of the helmets. This would be very thin but stop the crack you hear. Not sure why they think the only way to help the game is to have guys change the way they play.

If they don't do something besides changing the game, they will ruin the game. Leave the blocking, tackling stuff alone, just change a lot of the equipment.

I like this rule. Should've been done years ago. Block above the waist like a man.

So someone AE's size should have to block someone above the waist the size of Ron Edwards?

Don't think so.

There are some simple changes they can make to curb the risks, but they're going way over board to protect people who know what they signed up for. There wasn't anywhere near this much talk or concern about safety, immediate or long term, when I was a fireman. I knew what the risks were of falling through a floor or ceiling, getting burned, getting pneumonia, etc, etc.

The current NFL is a bunch of pussies, and it's what the younger generation wants.

Coincidence?

Nope.

Lol! I'm quite sure that when these players are 50-60 years old & are able to not only pick up their grand kids, but remember their names, they will wince in shame because some unknown people thought they were pussies.